


linger on, your pale blue eyes

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Post-Framework, as Liz says it's a rocky road to Perthshire, but they'll get there, but they're struggling, don't worry they're all in therapy, everyone makes it out alive, tw: depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 05:21:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10655763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: Jemma and Daisy rescue everyone from the Framework, and all of them are suffering from the trauma. Fitz in particular is severely depressed, but none of them are quite ready to give up.Told alternately from Jemma's POV and Fitz's journal entries for therapy.





	linger on, your pale blue eyes

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to my star itsavolcano for betaing!

Jemma and Daisy had not had the luxury of imagining their post-Framework life. There simply hadn’t been the time or mental resources available.

Now that they’re back, Jemma thinks she might have predicted this outcome. None of them are happy. Coulson and Mace are by far the most well-adjusted, but even they have more darkness in their eyes than any person should have to hold.

Mack chose to return, but he’s utterly bereft without Hope and Jemma finds that spending too much time around him hurts her soul in a way she’d never thought possible.

May...she doesn’t know where to start with May. Her physical recovery has taken the longest and for awhile the whole team worried she’d suffered permanent brain damage. It’s actually difficult to ascertain whether she has or not, because if May had been quiet before, she’s completely mute now.

And Fitz. Oh, god, _Fitz._

++

_5 May 2017_

_It’s strange having_ homework _. Jemma would love this. Well, perhaps she would question the efficacy of writing journal entries for a psychiatrist, but she would still be determined to write the best journal any psychiatrist had ever read. (Do you actually read these? That part wasn’t quite clear.)_

_I don’t think this will help, to be honest. But I’m not doing much of anything else, and I think Jemma wants me to do this. After everything I’ve done to her, the least I can do is spend some time writing._

_The thing is, where do I start? I know you were briefed by Coulson, but I can’t imagine you’ve ever had patients go through what we’ve all been through. Where exactly in the DSM-5 does it describe the condition of having your consciousness uploaded into another world that turns you into a monster who tortures friends and murders innocent people? I mean, if there’s a prescription for this, please, by all means let me know._

_I actually bought a new journal for this. I had one, before. The doctors thought it might help after my recovery from the whole near-drowning thing. You know that feeling when you thought you’d hit rock bottom and then years later discover there was so much farther to fall? That’s a bit what it felt like skimming my old journal entries._

_So, new journal for a new me. Welcome to my hell._

++

They’ve all been ordered to see counselors, every last one of them. Jemma wasn’t assigned the same one as Fitz, which she supposes makes sense. She knows even if they had the same one, the doctor would never break Fitz’s confidentiality to tell her what he’s been saying. But she’s desperate to know.

They don’t talk anymore. They share a bed and the inches between their bodies is farther than the stretch of a galaxy when she’d gone to sleep talking to her phone. In a way, his picture had been more responsive.

When they accidentally make eye contact, it feels like begging for his life and watching him murder a woman in cold blood all over again.

The thing is, she doesn’t blame him. She knows that wasn’t Fitz. She knows that since they’ve been back he has spiralled into depression and self-hatred because her Fitz is and has always been a good person, and the memory of what he’s done is devastating him.

But she doesn’t know how to help, and she doesn’t know how to bleach her own memories from her brain.

“How can I forget?” she asks her doctor in tears, three sessions in when she’s finally decided to open up. “Fitz and I have years of good memories, of _perfect_ memories, but I look at him and I see myself stabbing him. I see him killing Agnes and the way he looked at me in the Framework.”

“You can’t forget,” Dr. Scully replies. “Unfortunately, things like this simply take time.”

Time. What utter bullshit.

++

_8 May 2017_

_I can’t remember the last time I got out of bed. Oh, actually, yeah, it was for my last counseling appointment. So that was...three days ago. I should probably take a shower. I’m sure I’m disgusting._

_I just don’t have the energy for it. I sleep all the time and I’m still exhausted. I wonder if this is a side effect of time spent in the Framework. We still don’t have the best understanding of the strain that put on the brain, but it makes sense to me that it would be exhausting for our brains to keep up with the artificial cycles._

_I know you told me it’s actually a classic symptom of depression, but I really don’t feel depressed. Just bone-achingly tired and numb._

_My goal for today was to take a shower, but it’s 15:00 now and I just don’t see it happening. I’ll get up tomorrow, definitely._

++

Jemma misses Dr. Garner. She confesses this to Daisy, who laughs and agrees before turning thoughtful.

“I think we’d have the same issues talking to Dr. Garner, though,” she says. “I never thought he was helping me much at the time. Retrospect, you know.”

Jemma thinks about this until she can’t think anymore. She changes the subject and asks Daisy about her experience with the rest of the team. Daisy is the only person she feels she can talk openly with—of course they both have their Framework-related traumas, but they were also the only ones to understand from the beginning the truth of that world. It had been her and Daisy against everyone, and sometimes it feels like that hasn’t changed.

“I saw Mack and YoYo in the kitchen yesterday, and she actually made him _laugh_. Well, not laugh, but it was a solid chuckle. That’s a good sign, right?” Daisy hands Jemma a beer from the refrigerator and she takes it gratefully.

She perhaps should not be drinking at this time of day, but thinking hurts _so_ much. Alcohol-induced haziness is such a relief.

Daisy drums her fingers against her bottle as she sits down at the counter. “Have you talked much with Fitz?”

Jemma blinks back the tears that always emerge at the mention of his name. Someday, she’ll need to get over that. She feels constantly dehydrated.

“He’s the same, pretty much. He hasn’t missed an appointment, but other than that...he just stays in bed most of the day. And night. He’s been journaling.”

“Have you read it?” Daisy asks, and Jemma looks up at her, affronted.

“Of course I haven’t! He deserves his privacy.”

Daisy throws her hands up, conciliatory. “I wasn’t implying you’d, like, _steal_ it. I just thought maybe he’d offered to let you read it.”

Jemma shakes her head, thinking that once upon a time he might have. There had always been secrets between them, but her old Fitz would have shown her what he couldn’t tell her.

“I don’t think he wants me to know what he’s feeling,” she finally says, and as she says it she’s conscious of an unbearable pressure in her chest.

“It’s going to be okay,” Daisy says, reaching forward and taking Jemma’s hand in her own. “I understand what he’s feeling, in a way.” She pauses, taking a breath and looking down. “I ran away to deal with my grief and shame and guilt. I think this is his version of that.”

Jemma doesn’t tell her that the last time Fitz had woken up from a dream crying, he’d turned to her and asked why she hadn’t just left him there.

She doesn’t tell Daisy that she worries he’ll never forgive her.

++

_16 May 2017_

_I’m pretty sure it’s causing Jemma physical pain to be around me, not that I blame her. The past few nights I’ve woken up at 2 or 3 am, and she’s not in bed. She’s working all the time. She’s working herself to death rather than be in the same room with me._

_Last night, I woke up at 4 am and was so bloody hungry I had to get dressed and grab something from the kitchen. I found her sleeping on the couch, still holding onto her latest research findings._

_I think the pain I felt from seeing her there is the most I’ve felt in ages. I pulled a blanket over her and thought if I were brave at all I’d just leave her, let her heal on her own without worrying about me. Let her_ heal _, because I don’t think she can do it with me here._

 _But I’ve always been a coward. And even though I have nothing to say to her, the fact that she’s so close and I_ could _say something if I needed to is hard to give up._

_I miss touching her. We always had a tactile friendship with no regard for personal space. If I were frustrated, she could put a hand on my shoulder and I’d calm down right away, like she’d administered some balm._

_I don’t believe in soulmates, but I think she’s mine. And when, in a moment of despicable weakness, you let your thumb graze the pulse of your soulmate’s wrist and she flinches, it feels like someone has torn your heart from your body and set it on fire. It feels worse than dying._

_I know you think this is hyperbole, but I’ve actually experienced what it feels like to die quite a few times, so I know what I’m talking about._

++

Jemma might be the most productive member of the team at the moment. She’s working harder than she ever has before, harder than when she was trying to complete two PhDs before her peers had their GSCEs.

If she stops working, she might actually have to think about her life and how she’s failing at everything that isn’t related to SHIELD biochem research.

Most nights, she doesn’t even stay in their bed. It’s so hard to share a bed with the man she loves and worry about whether he still has the capacity to love her back. It’s excruciating to watch someone she adores so much suffer and know there’s nothing she can do about it. And really, most nights she can’t even sleep and it’s all Fitz seems able to do.

Once, she was terrified to tell him about Will. She didn’t know how to explain the situation while making him believe that he was still _it_ for her. And she was right to be afraid—she’d done a terrible job at explaining, and he’d believed for so long that whatever she felt for Will could even approach the depth of her love for him.

How then, can she confess to stabbing someone with his face and a mapping of his brain?

He rolled over last night and his thumb grazed her wrist, right over the spot where she’d made him slit his own and in the space of a breath she’d seen him, the love of her life, crying and begging her not to make him do it.

Fitz thinks he’s a monster, but really he’s just sleeping next to one.

++

_20 May 2017_

_Today, I told you about killing Agnes and how it felt at the moment. I’ll admit, I’m pretty impressed at how impassive you kept your face, but I saw a flicker of revulsion. I think you’d deny it if I told you this, but I saw it._

_It felt good, actually. Everyone is trying to reassure me. Daisy comes by the room occasionally to talk to me, even though I never have the energy to respond, and she always finishes by telling me whatever I did wasn’t_ me _and she forgives me and she loves me._

_I don’t know what Jemma really thinks, but every now and then she does stay the night in our bed so she must be trying to convince herself that the person who did all that wasn’t me._

_But that flicker—that’s what they all secretly think. It’s what I think. And it felt really good to finally have that out in the open._

++

Jemma, Daisy, and Mack are all assigned a mission together. Simple re-con, really. Information gathering on the Watchdogs. Jemma is ashamed to admit that she’d actually forgotten about the Watchdogs.

Probably May should have gone in her place, but May is still recovering. On her optimistic days, Jemma thinks she actually _is_ recovering. She saw her doing taiji the other morning and it filled her own body with a modicum of peace.

So it’s Jemma, Daisy, and Mack strapped into the quinjet while someone pilots them away, so far away from the base.

There’s no pre-mission banter.

Jemma closes her eyes and concentrates on breathing. She doesn’t experience her usual mission-related nerves. _What can go wrong_ , she thinks. She knows this is a dangerous question to put out into the cosmos, but what she really means is: _even if everything goes wrong, what else can possibly hurt me?_

Mack clears his throat and Daisy and Jemma look up at him. They had chosen seats right next to each other—they find it particularly difficult to be apart now. Mack is across from them and he meets their eyes, fiercely and bravely.

“You two know it was my choice to come back, right?” he asks, as if he’s simply continuing a conversation from earlier.

“But was it _really_ a choice?” Jemma finds herself asking. Beside her, Daisy shifts in her seat, clutching the harness with white hands. Daisy is not afraid of flying.

“Yes,” Mack answers firmly. “It was a choice and I made it. And I know it’s not real, none of it, but in a way I think I’m grateful for having experienced fatherhood with Hope.”

“Really?” Daisy breathes and Jemma flinches from her question even though she finds herself irrepressibly curious.

Mack tilts his head, considering his answer thoughtfully. “Yeah. I’m not necessarily saying I’d do it all over again, but...Hope’s death devastated me. I lost my faith for a long time. I couldn’t understand how God could let her die before she’d even had a chance at life. Every year, I wondered what she’d be like at this age. And now I know, in a way. And she was better than anything I’d ever imagined.”

Jemma finds herself smiling, the muscles around her mouth aching from the unfamiliar action. “She was beautiful, Mack,” she says.

“And so fucking smart!” Daisy adds.

“You make a great father,” Jemma says, hoping he feels how truly she means it.

“Thanks,” he laughs. And then he looks directly at Jemma and her whole body stills. “You should tell Turbo. He’s not exactly an easy person to talk to at the moment, but I want...I’d like him to know.”

She nods, although she doesn’t tell him that he’s not the only person unable to talk to Fitz at the moment. She’ll try, though. It’s Fitz—how can she not try?

They don’t say anything for the rest of the flight, but for once it doesn’t feel like the calm before a storm.

++

_25 May 2017_

_I bring this journal to every session, but you never ask to see it. There’s no point in writing here, but I keep doing it because I have nothing else to do._

_I don’t have any projects. I’m not sure whether this is an attempt by the others to help my own mental state or because my last projects turned into world-destroying murder weapons. World-building murder weapons?_

_My main goal is to shower at least twice a week. I’ve managed to keep this up, for the most part. Sometimes I stay in there so long the water turns cold._

_Once, I stayed in there so long I thought I was at the bottom of the ocean and I couldn’t breathe and I was_ so fucking grateful _._

 _Jemma came in that time, turned the water off, wrapped a towel around me, and dragged me back to bed. She was so gentle with me. Then she held me—she actually_ held _me—and I cried. Then she cried. She cried so much I wondered if we were still in the shower._

_When I woke up, she was gone. I’m still not entirely positive this wasn’t a dream._

++

Jemma has decided to do taiji with May. Dr. Scully agreed it was a good idea. She thought the early-morning meditation and physical work could help her get out of her own head a bit.

She’s awful at it, truly awful, although she’s not sure why because it seems so easy. And she’s _positive_ May is laughing at her, although she never actually catches her at it.

After a few days, Daisy joins them. They both worry they’re infringing on May’s private healing time, but they also think surely May of all people would tell them if she resented their presence.

None of them speak. Daisy and Jemma just carefully and excruciatingly slowly follow May’s movements.

It might be a placebo effect, but Jemma does think it helps her mood a bit. She has the most difficult time shutting off her brain, and she constantly worries that she’s not doing meditation _right_. But mostly the early-morning calm of quiet movement with two women she loves with her whole heart feels like healing.

A week after Daisy starts practicing with them, she loses her balance and topples over spectacularly, knocking Jemma to the ground like a human domino. Jemma shrieks and flings her arms out, grazing May’s leg. Incredibly, the motion barely registers against May’s body: she remains perfectly in position, turning her gaze towards the women sprawled ridiculously on the floor and arching one perfect eyebrow.

“Wha— _how_?” Daisy gasps, turning onto her back and shaking her head incredulously.

“You two lack discipline,” May replies and both of them gasp in (more-or-less) faux outrage.

“ _She_ knocked _me_ over,” Jemma protests, and Daisy sticks her tongue out at her like an actual child.

“I’m a _superhero_ , guys, I think I know a little something about discipline,” is Daisy’s rebuttal, which causes both Jemma and May to roll their eyes.

May continues her slow and steady movements as if no disruption has taken place, but it’s all over for Jemma and Daisy. Daisy starts laughing and Jemma can’t help but follow and finally May sighs and grabs her water bottle.

“Do you two want pancakes?” May asks, as if making them pancakes is something she’s done quite often and not the most unusual offer Jemma can imagine.

 _Pancakes_ , she thinks, and suddenly there’s nothing she wants more in the world.

May makes enough to feed the whole base, and as agents trickle in following the sweet smell, Jemma realizes that it’s been hours since she’s felt that all-encompassing heavy sorrow dragging at her heart.

She makes Fitz a plate of pancakes, just how he likes it. She arranges the pancakes on the plate just so and carefully drizzles the exact right amount of syrup over the top.

When she brings the breakfast to their room, she sees that he’s still asleep. She sets the plate down on the nightstand nearest him and gently runs a finger along his brow until he opens his eyes blearily.

This close to sleep he is unguarded, and his pale blue eyes looking up at her cause something akin to happiness to bubble up within her. “May made pancakes,” she whispers. “They’re delicious. I brought you some.”

“Okay,” he mumbles, and closes his eyes again. She contemplates kissing him. She wants to feel his skin against her lips so badly, but instead she runs her fingers through his hair lightly and leaves.

When she comes back in the evening, thoroughly worn out from a full day in the lab, she sees that he hasn’t touched his plate at all.

++

_15 June 2017_

_I’m so tired. I’m so tired I want to cry with exhaustion but I don’t even have the energy for that._

_I don’t know who I am anymore. Sometimes I don’t know where I am._

_I don’t want to be here, but I don’t know how to leave._

++

“Fitz,” she says, kneeling down at the edge of his bed. _Their_ bed, it’s still their bed, even if it doesn’t feel like that at all.

He doesn’t say anything, but tilts his head slightly in acknowledgement.

“I was thinking maybe you could get up for a little bit. I’d like to wash the sheets.” She’s wanted to wash the sheets for over a month, but she worries she’s taking away his only safe space. But she can’t take it anymore and also a small, unscientific but hopeful part of her wonders if clean sheets are the obvious answer she’s been missing this whole time. Of course! The counseling and journaling and visits from friends aren’t helping, but _clean sheets_ are sure to cure his depression.

He doesn’t want to get up, she can tell, but he allows her to tug him from the bed and even pulls a fresh jumper over his t-shirt. He stands at the doorway while she strips the bed, looking entirely lost. When she comes back from throwing everything into the wash, he hasn’t moved. He’s staring at the bed as if it’s betrayed him on a level so deep it’s unimaginable.

“Come on,” she says, wondering if she’s testing her luck. “How about we watch some telly? I’ll make us your favorite popcorn.”

He probably thinks she’s treating him like a child, but he follows her anyway. In the rec room, Mack and Daisy are playing a video game while YoYo watches, and Fitz freezes at the sight.

Everyone looks up as if on command, and Jemma thinks Fitz probably would run if he had any real strength.

“I’m doing laundry,” Jemma says, forcing a note of chipperness into her voice. “I thought we could watch TV, but we don’t want to interrupt.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” Daisy responds immediately, jumping up to switch off the game.

“It’s boring watching these two anyway,” YoYo says, taking a swig of her beer and smirking at Mack’s affronted look.

“Great,” Jemma replies, cringing at her own false cheeriness but not sure how to turn it off. “I’ll just make us some popcorn then, okay?”

She places a hand gently against Fitz’s elbow, steering him towards the room. She realizes now that she can’t remember the last time he’d joined them in here.

Daisy scoots closer to Mack on the couch and pats the spot next to her. “Come on, Fitz,” she says, and miraculously, he does. He doesn’t really look comfortable sitting next to her, tugging the sleeves of his jumper down to cover his hands, hunching over like he hopes he’ll disappear at any moment.

Mack is searching through the channels and they all try not to notice how inappropriate every choice seems. No robot movies. No dystopian movies of _any_ kind. No feel good movies about parents. No superhero movies. No, definitely not that mad scientist movie.

Finally, he settles on an animal planet documentary about chimpanzees in Uganda. Jemma smiles at Mack in appreciation when she comes back with the popcorn. There has never existed a Fitz depressed enough to not want to watch primates.

But twenty minutes later, a red colobus monkey unwittingly wanders into the area and the chimpanzees descend upon it with frightening speed. _Turn it off_ , Jemma silently begs Mack, but it’s like they’re all frozen in place, unable to turn away from the horror.

Fitz can’t watch things like this, he’s never been able to stomach it, but he leans forward as if he’s determined to see this through, as if he knows what’s happening and feels he deserves this punishment. Thankfully, the documentary spares them most of the gore, and Mack finally switches channels.

Fitz stands up abruptly and there are tears shimmering on his cheeks. He wipes at his eyes with his sleeve and gestures behind him. “Yeah, I’m gonna go,” he says.

Nobody says anything once he leaves, and it’s in the silence following his departure that Jemma realizes those were the first words he’d spoken in days.

++

_22 June 2017_

_Today, after our session, I went down to the lab and answered some emails. Jemma smiled at me like I’d just created a new fucking dwarf. Still, it’s something right? You can’t say I’m not trying. Which you actually never say, but you could. I suppose it’s not entirely inaccurate._

_Every day I wake up hating myself. I wake up with a new memory of something I’d done in the Framework and it makes me so sick. Sometimes I think maybe it’s good to feel things again instead of being so incredibly numb all the time. I just wish I could feel something,_ anything _, besides guilt and shame and nausea._

_I miss Jemma. There’s a feeling. I miss her all the time. I miss kissing her and talking to her and laughing with her and arguing and sex and holding her when she’s upset and waking up overheated because we’re tangled together and planning our Seychelles trip and date nights and working side-by-side in the lab._

_Mostly, I miss looking at her and knowing there’s no one else in the universe who will understand me and love me the way she does. Mostly, I miss being someone who might someday deserve her_.

++

Jemma continues her sessions with the psychiatrist, even though Dr. Scully keeps encouraging her to try talking to Fitz about her own guilty feelings. She says maybe it would help him as well, as if Dr. Scully can really know Fitz better than she does.

She thinks things are improving, if one steps back and looks at the situation overall instead of focusing on the day-to-day. Because in the day-to-day, Fitz still spends most of his time sleeping, he still hardly talks to her, and he still doesn’t touch her, except late at night when his fingers can graze her arm and they can both pretend it’s just an accident.

But he does venture out occasionally, and he averages about five hours a week in the lab working, which feels at this point like a miracle. He’s had a whole conversation with Mack that didn’t end in tears, and she could have sworn one of Daisy’s jokes made him laugh. Well, smile. He definitely smiled.

It’s just that there’s such a chasm between them and she doesn’t know how to fix it. Maybe they won’t ever be the same, but it physically hurts her how much Fitz seems to be suffering. She thinks she would do anything to heal his heart.

That morning, he had been sleeping when she left. For once, he seemed to be having a calming dream because the worry lines along his forehead had smoothed out and he looked so peaceful she nearly wept. She placed a kiss to her fingertips and then touched her fingers to his forehead. _Baby steps_.

In the lab she twirls a pencil around her fingers, considering the ridiculous plan that had formed as she’d finished up taiji with May and Daisy.

Finally, she takes a breath and dials a number she hasn’t for ages. Her fingers dance over the buttons as muscle memory takes over.

“Linda?” she asks, when the woman an ocean away answers.

“Jemma!” the woman exclaims, and Jemma doesn’t even know what she’s saying, but when she hangs up, she buries her head in her arms and sobs with relief.

++

_26 June 2017_

_Jemma knocked on our bedroom door yesterday, which I would have thought was strange if I had the capacity for such observations at the moment._

_She opened the door and smiled at me. “Fitz,” she said. “I brought someone to see you.” And then she stepped aside and my_ mum _was there, just standing there like there was nothing unusual about her being here._

_I sat up and held out my arms like a child, like an actual child. And then she said, “Oh, Leo,” in that fond-exasperated way she has, and I totally lost it. I just sobbed all over her._

_I should be embarrassed, probably. I’m a grown man, believe it or not. But I saw her and remembered how she’d died in the Framework but she was here and she was going to make everything better again._

_Sometimes, you really just need your mum._

++

Jemma knew bringing Fitz’s mother to the base wasn’t a magical cure, but when she watched the way Linda dropped everything and enveloped Fitz in her arms, she felt like for once she’d done exactly what she was meant to do. Here, she has reunited mother and son and she has brought some light back into the universe. Finally, she has done something besides hurt the person who matters most to her in the world.

She leaves them alone for the whole day, only seeing Linda when she ventures into the kitchen for some food and tea. Jemma wants to ask how he is, but truthfully she already knows and she’s not sure she can handle hearing about his depression from the woman who’s always been like her own mother.

That night, Jemma pauses outside their bedroom door, unsure. She’d set up a guest room down the hall for Linda, but she’s not sure if maybe she should take it instead. When she opens the door, she sees Linda leaning against the headboard, reading a novel. Fitz is sound asleep, head pillowed on her lap, as she gently strokes his hair back. His curls are completely overgrown and he looks so childlike in this pose that Jemma’s heart aches.

Normally Fitz is tucked under blankets, but now he’s lying on top of them and for the first time she allows herself to see how thin he is. She worries for a moment that Linda will get angry at her for not taking better care of her son. _Please know I tried_ , she wants to say, but the words stick in her throat.

Jemma is planning to get her pajamas and sleep in the guest room, but Linda looks up as she hesitates in the doorway. “Do you want to lie down?” she asks, and Jemma nearly weeps with relief.

 _Yes_ , god, yes, she wants to lie down.

Her own mother had never been very maternal, but Linda had always known exactly what to say when Jemma struggled with an assignment (rarely) or stressed over her and Fitz’s future (more frequently). She had known exactly how to make a perfect comforting cup of tea and how to hug her in a way that made her think, if only for a moment, that everything would turn out okay.

Jemma curls up to Fitz’s side and he shifts in his sleep so that he’s pressed more firmly against her. She wraps her arms around his waist and lets one hand rest against Linda’s knee.

“Just rest, love,” Linda says soothingly, and she does. She really does.

++

_1 August 2017_

_Mum’s still here, although she’s moved into the room Jemma set up down the hall. It turns out she brought loads of embarrassing pictures, but I actually didn’t mind when she showed all my friends. Colleagues. Former captives? I’m not really sure of the correct terminology anymore._

_Jemma held up one of me at the zoo pointing excitedly at a monkey and said it was her ‘absolute favorite picture of all time.’ She actually said that, and she actually smiled at me. I’m starting to think maybe she doesn’t hate me after all, and I don’t know why but right now I’m choosing not to question it._

_I’ve told my mum about a lot of our sessions and she’s pretty impressed with you. That probably doesn’t mean much to you, but it should, because my mum is basically one of the best people I know, so it’s high praise._

_She’s forcing me to get out of bed more often. She said she knows I can’t just cure my depression like that, but maybe my body can get into the habit of being part of the world again and then it’ll be easier for my brain._

_I told her about dad, sort of. It turns out it’s hard to discuss everything that happened without it sounding absolutely fucking bonkers to someone who thought, until now, I mostly stayed in the lab. A lab without life-like robots and immersive virtual experiences corrupted by an evil book. I can’t really tell her I murdered someone or that I lived a whole lifetime without her. But I told her that Radcliffe had met him and everything that brought up._

_Get this, she actually feels guilty for allowing my dad to stay in our lives for so long. She thinks a lot of these issues are her fault. Apparently she’s thought for years that I blamed her, which is ridiculous. I told her that. I told her I read all about how abusive relationships work and that she did the best she could and that I would never in a million years blame her._

_Then she told me maybe I should stop blaming myself. It’s not the same thing, of course, but she doesn’t know that._

_Still, it felt nice to hear her say it._

++

Jemma knows all about the stereotypes about mothers-in-law, but having Linda on base is so wonderful she can’t believe she didn’t think of it sooner. (Whoa, not that Linda is her mother-in-law, and perhaps she should wait until she and Fitz are properly talking again before jumping to that step.)

She lets slip that she and Fitz had bought a flat together and then immediately worries they’ll be in for a lecture on marriage or premarital sex or something. Although Linda obviously knows they’re sharing a room on the base. But a flat feels different—it’s a real commitment and can’t be explained away because of _limited housing options_ or some such.

Instead, Linda turns to her and nearly drops her tea cup. “You two have a _flat?_ Then what on earth are you doing still living in this depressing—” She cuts herself off suddenly. “I mean, no, it’s quite lovely, and you and Leo have done such a good job personalizing the space.”

Jemma can’t help grinning as Linda stumbles on the save. Sometimes, every now and then, some of Fitz’s own awkwardness comes through in his mother and Jemma secretly loves it.

“I just mean,” Linda continues, “that well, wouldn’t it be nice to have a bedroom with a window? You could see the sunrise instead of these artificial light cycles.”

“Yes,” Jemma sighs, remembering her beautiful flat and how she’d already imagined what furniture would go where. She already knew what she’d make for their very first breakfast together in their perfect breakfast nook.

“So much happened so suddenly,” Jemma says, leaning back against the kitchen counter and taking a sip of her own tea. “It just...became one of the sacrifices.”

“Well, what about now? I was planning to stay for at least another week. That’s plenty of time to get your flat all set up!”

Jemma shrugs slightly. Of course she wants to say yes, but she feels like this, of everything, is right on the precipice of asking too much.

In the end, it doesn’t matter because Linda is genuinely excited about the project. She takes Jemma to pick out furniture. Fitz doesn’t feel up to coming, but Jemma texts him options and he replies with his opinion. The fact that he even has an opinion about the color of the sectional makes her feel like she might be dying of happiness.

The whole team helps them move into their flat.

“Thank god for Mack, am I right?” Daisy snickers, as he carries in the mattress with one hand. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I could move just as much but using my powers feels like cheating. And I don’t want to freak out Mama Fitz or anything.”

Jemma laughs. She makes eye contact with Fitz and gives him a small smile, which he miraculously returns. He’s still so weak and tired all the time, but he’s carried in a few boxes and even made a fair amount of smalltalk. She knows he’s really trying and she’s so proud of him.

Jemma orders enough pizza to feed a small army and they all spread throughout the living room, eating, drinking beers and regaling Fitz’s mother with their more ridiculous (non-classified) stories. Jemma looks over at Fitz, who’s smiling at one of Mack’s anecdotes, and moves her hand so it’s right next to his. He widens his eyes and inches closer until he can hook a finger with one of hers. It’s such a small gesture that it’s practically nothing, but it feels unspeakably intimate.

++

_10 August 2017_

_Everyone left around midnight, including my mum, even though we told her she was welcome to the spare bedroom here. But she insisted that all of her things were back on the base and she really wanted to shower after all the exertion of moving._

_So it was just me and Jemma. It’s always just been me and Jemma, in the end._

_We didn’t really say much. I tried to help Jemma clean up, but I was exhausted so she told me to just head to bed._

_It’s so quiet in our bedroom. There’s always something happening on the base, so you’ll never experience a moment of stillness. But I sat down on our new bed and everything was just so silent and still._

_When Jemma came in, her hair was all mussed up and she had dirt on her face, and I really thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life._

_And then I started crying. I’m not even sure why. I just had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude that she’s still in my life, and disbelief that now, after everything I’ve done, I’m living in a beautiful flat with the best person in the entire universe. That all of these people I’ve hurt came to help us move in._

_“Fitz?” she whispered, and she kneeled down on the floor next to the bed and held my hands. She’s always so gentle with me._

_I told her I was sorry. I told her over and over that I was so sorry for what I’d done, for who I’d been, for what I’d put her through._

_She didn’t say anything except “Fitz” and then she reached up and pulled me towards her and kissed me. She kissed me and kissed me and kissed me until I was dizzy with it._

_I don’t think I’ve ever gotten such a good night’s sleep in my entire life._

++

Jemma has her final session with Dr. Scully. She promises she’ll come back if she needs to and is a bit surprised to realize she’s not even lying about that.

“Did you work on your journal?” Dr. Scully asks and Jemma gives her what she hopes is a disarming smile.

“That’s okay,” she says. “It’s just meant to be a helpful exercise. You’re doing much better in your processing lately, and if you achieved that without journaling, it’s fine.”

Jemma feels a little guilty about the lie-by-omission, but probably psychiatrists are used to much worse.

“Oh!” she says, after their appointment is over and she’s about to leave. “I nearly forgot, I brought you this.” She frowns then, suddenly unsure. “Is that appropriate? Giving you a gift? It doesn’t seem appropriate, now that I think about it.”

Dr. Scully laughs, and Jemma feels inordinately proud that she’s made her serious psychiatrist laugh. “We can probably allow it,” she says.

Jemma digs around in her purse and pulls out a keychain with a little alien figurine on it. She’d gotten Fitz to make it for her. It’s holding up a sign that says, “So long, and thanks for all the therapy!”

Jemma bites her lip as she extends it towards her doctor. “Okay, now that I think about it, it seems rather silly. But you know, the alien because you said your partner was obsessed and, I don’t know...you don’t have to take it,” she finishes, a bit defensively.

Dr. Scully laughs again and takes the keychain from Jemma’s fingers. “Don’t be silly, I love it.” She adds it to her keyring as Jemma stands up.

“Seriously,” Jemma says, brushing her palms against her thighs and feeling strangely anxious. “Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re welcome, Jemma,” she says, unfailingly kind. “But really, you did the work yourself.”

++

_19 August 2017_

_Today I turned 30. Thirty. I feel ancient. I would not be surprised to find out I’m actually some Hive-like being and I’ve been around for millennia. Surely you’re not meant to feel this weary after only three decades._

_Jemma woke me up earlier than usual. Maybe things are approaching normal if she feels comfortable enough to boss me around again. But it was worth it because she dragged me out to the breakfast nook and had the most amazing spread set up. She must have been awake for hours._

_And for the first time in a long time, I realized that I was actually starving. I ate so much I thought I’d be sick, and Jemma laughed at my appetite and she kissed the sugar off my face. I know we’ve been in a relationship for awhile, but it feels like starting over in a way, and every time she kisses me I feel ridiculously giddy._

_She told me she’d had so many ideas for a birthday gift, but nothing really seemed appropriate for this year._

_“It’s okay,” I told her. “You don’t need to get me anything.” And she rolled her eyes and said of course she’d gotten me something but she was quite nervous about it._

_She handed me a carefully wrapped present, and when I tore the paper off I thought at first it was a new journal. (This one is nearly filled, after all.) But when I opened the book I realized it was_ her _journal. The one she’d been keeping for her therapy sessions._

_I didn’t know what to say, honestly. I know Jemma trusts me, but this is like being entrusted with somebody’s soul._

_I must’ve made her nervous because she started rambling about how I didn’t have to read it, and of course she didn’t expect me to let her read mine, and it was a silly idea. So I shut her up with a kiss. (I like that we can do that to each other again.)_

_“It’s perfect,” I told her, which is true._

_She told me it had a lot of hard stuff in it. She said, “Things I didn’t know how to tell you. And I hope you can forgive me when you read them. But I think the whole time I knew I was writing to you, and I wanted you to know.”_

_There’s never been a question of forgiving her, and I’ll do my best to prove that to her. I told her she could read mine as well, but it doesn’t feel finished. (Not that, really, this sort of thing is ever finished. But I think when I hit a natural endpoint, I’ll know it.)_

_We lounged about most of the day and then went to the base and had a small party. I think it’s the most I’ve laughed in months. I’m actually quite sore from it._

_Then we had to take mum to the airport. She held me for five minutes outside of security and made me promise on my life to visit soon. She doesn’t know it yet, but we’ve already booked tickets home for Christmas._

_The strange thing is, I’ve ended the day feeling so much younger than when I woke up._

++

It’s a new normal. Jemma still meets up with May and Daisy three days a week for taiji, although to be honest it’s getting harder and harder to leave the comfort of her bed and Fitz’s warm body wrapped around hers. But she thinks it’s important.

Fitz still sees his counselor, although not as frequently. She drives him to his appointments and afterwards they stop and get ice cream. Sometimes he tells her what they discussed and sometimes he doesn’t, but he always steals too many bites of her ice cream and she always lets him.

There are moments when the weight of everything feels like concrete filling her lungs. Like when she sees a little girl with Hope’s smile, or when she and Fitz come up with a new idea in the lab and they look at each other and she knows they’re both thinking the exact same thing: _how will this be corrupted?_

But mostly, they’re all okay. Better than okay, really. They’re surviving and it’s such a victory.

++

_21 November 2017_

_Today I’m proposing. It’s probably a bit corny, the anniversary of the day Jemma and I were partnered together in chem lab._

_I’ve got a ring and a reservation and a speech that I’m going to completely bollocks up, I’m sure. But I’ve also got Jemma, so I think I’m doing fine._

_This is, coincidentally, the last page in my journal. It feels fitting—the ending of something and the beginning of something so much better. I might buy another journal, actually. I’ve gotten quite used to spending time here._

_So I think I’ll let Jemma read this (after the proposal, of course. I’m not dumb enough to ruin the surprise)._

_Jemma. Hi. Here are all of my most horrible thoughts. You can give the ring back, if you’d like. I hope you know by now how much I love you and how much I want you to be happy. Sometimes I think about everything we’ve seen and done and I’m just overwhelmed that after all that it’s still us, it’s still me and you._

_I always knew we’d get on. Sixteen and achingly shy, but I knew we’d be friends. And I was right. You’re my best friend and you’re so much more than that._

_Earlier today, I was remembering our dinner after we brought you back from Maveth. You thanked me for finding you. So it seems appropriate that I thank you for finding me and for saving my life, in more ways than one._

_I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you._

++

"Yes."


End file.
